


An Excellent Liar

by Bullfinch



Series: After Kirkwall [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: M/M, Seheron, background Bull/Dorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-25 09:06:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4954519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bullfinch/pseuds/Bullfinch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hawke and the Iron Bull go to Seheron to investigate reports of a surprising development in the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: A shameless exploration of my Hawke, seen here for the first time without Fenris at his side to temper him. Additionally a loving (and hopefully accurate) portrait of how that big sweetheart Iron Bull was somehow also one of the Ben-Hassrath’s best agents. 
> 
> In case you've forgotten: my Hawke's not really a great guy. So buckle up y’all, this might get dark.

Hawke reads the letter again, trying to glean any more information out of it. There isn’t much there. Sort of seems like she’s keeping him in the dark on purpose.

_Ser Hawke. The situation on Seheron has changed, and the Inquisition is concerned. However, I have no intention of involving my organization in the absolute mess up there, which means I need to keep our intervention very much unofficial. I feel that your skills and your disposition might be of use in infiltrating Seheron, gathering the necessary information, and acting on it. You will, of course, be generously compensated. If you are interested, we have an agent stationed in Stanwick until the end of Harvestmere. They will give you the details and accompany you north._

_Sanaris Lavellan_

No particulars about the “situation on Seheron.” She hardly mentioned it. The important part got through, he supposes.  _Your skills and your disposition. Gathering the necessary information, and acting on it._

Hawke has two reputations. One is as the Champion of Kirkwall—brave and kind, a smile never far from his face. The other is known only to a few—Rowan Hawke, skilled assassin, excellent liar, unfettered by moral qualms so long as the goal is justified.

That one cuts somewhat closer to the truth.

Fenris is stretching, touching his toes, his greatsword lying beside him in the grass. About to practice his forms. Hawke stands, his chair scraping back across the porch. “Fenris.”

“Hm?”

“Something’s come up with the Inquisition. Apparently I’m needed.”

Fenris straightens. “When do we leave?”

“I—“ This isn’t as easy as he’d hoped. “—think it might be best if you stay here for this one.”

Fenris pauses. “Why?”

Shit. Hawke comes across the grass and kisses him. “It’s sort of complicated. I’ll explain everything when I get back, I promise.”

“When will you be back?”

He winces. No telling, really, but considering how long it takes to get up there— “A few weeks, maybe?”

Fenris watches him still, a little bit of hurt showing through, followed closely by concern. “Hawke…”

“Please trust me.” Hawke takes his hand.

Fenris’s gaze slips down. He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “All right.”

Hawke kisses him again and goes to pack. Shit. That didn’t feel good, at all. But it’s better than telling him the truth now, when they’re about to be apart for weeks.

_I don’t want you to see me like that._

——

Stanwick is north of Kirkwall, a small town with only one tavern (how do they survive?). Hawke’s there by evening, a few coins lighter. He likes to tip well, and the carriage driver was very grateful. He goes with his hood up. Not likely he’d be recognized here, but considering the clandestine nature of the letter and how much he hates being recognized, it’s best to be cautious.

The tavern is rowdy at this hour—apparently they get going earlier in the country than they do in the city. Hawke sidles in and scans the place. The Inquisition contact should be here, probably lurking in a corner somewhere so as not to draw attention to themselves—

A raucous burst of laughter from the bar, where several men and women sit surrounding a very large Qunari. He appears to be ordering another round of drinks, waving the barkeep forward with a three-fingered hand.

Hawke nearly turns around and walks right out of the tavern.

Of course. Of course they sent the Iron Bull. Who better, for a mission to Seheron that requires the extraction of sensitive information, than an ex-Ben-Hassrath agent who was stationed there for years? He was so focused on what  _he’d_  have to do that he never stopped to think about who the contact might be—clever of the damned Inquisitor not to mention it, he’d have tossed the letter in the river straightaway—

The Qunari has noticed him by now, and ambles over, maneuvering between the tables with grace. “Glad to see you made it. Come on, let’s sit down.” He gestures to a pair of open seats.

Hawke hangs there by the door for another moment. He really doesn’t care if Bull is Tal-Vashoth now, and has been for months; Hawke still hasn’t forgiven him for trying to re-educate Fenris, and has no plans to do so. It’s actually a little surprising the Inquisitor decided to pair them up. Hawke has, after all, tried twice to kill Bull—the first attempt was stopped by Fenris, of all people, and the second foiled by Cullen. Maybe Inquisitor Lavellan just wants the Qunari out of her hair.

Or maybe things in Seheron have gone  _really_  wrong.

Hawke brushes past Bull and sits.

Bull settles across the table, the chair creaking under his weight. “So, it’s been a while.”

“Mm.” Hawke leans back in his seat and folds his arms. “What do you say we skip all this catching up and get down to business?”

Bull remains unruffled. “You know, we’re going to be living with each other for a few weeks at least. Might be good to pick up the habit of small talk, or things are gonna get really awkward.”

“Right. Small talk.” Hawke offers him a bright smile. “Still fucking that Tevinter, are you? Was it worth leaving the Qun for him? Must be, if you’re still together—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you hate Dorian.” Bull grimaces. Good. “But I’d appreciate it if you could lay off him while we’re working together.”

“Sorry, my apologies,” Hawke says, contrite. “All right then. Heard you’ve got a new band of mercenaries working for you. Still alive, are they? How long d’you think that’ll last?”

Bull grunts. “I know what you’re trying to do, you know. You like control.”

Hawke stills. Shit. How’d the Qunari pin him that fast? Ben-Hassrath training. Damn it all.

“You want to rile me up so I’ll lose my temper, get unstable. Then you’re in control, because you’re the only one with a cool head. It’s not going to work.” Bull leans across the table. “You rag on Dorian, you needle me about the Chargers, I’ll get annoyed, yeah. But this job’s bigger than my personal feelings, and I’m not gonna lose my head and put it in danger. So do me a favor and stop trying to get at me. It’s not worth the breath you’ll waste on it.”

Hawke drums his fingers on the table. Fine. “About ‘this job.’ The Inquisitor was rather nonspecific in her letter.”

“Yeah.” Bull settles back in his chair, mollified. “There’s four basic factions on Seheron. The Vints and the Qunari, of course, going at each other’s throats. Then the Tal-Vashoth and the native fighters, attacking both sides wherever they can get in a good hit. If they coordinated they might be able to really tip the scales. But the natives don’t trust the Tal-Vashoth. Too easy for a Qunari to pose as one.” Bull grins. “Anyway, we got a report a few weeks back saying that the Tal-Vashoth have allied themselves with the Vints.”

Hawke raises an eyebrow. He’s only just familiar with the situation on Seheron, but after so many years of chaos, a sudden alliance does sound out of place.

“And that’s all the information we have. Just that one-line report. Could be bullshit. Could be something really bad.” He motions to himself and Hawke. “So we’re going to go find out which one.”

“Right. Do we have a plan for that?”

Bull shrugs. “Grab a Tal-Vashoth. Or a Vint, or both. Find out what they know. Go from there.”

“ ‘Find out what they know,’ “ Hawke muses. “I assume that’s why the Inquisitor decided to send me with you, instead of, for instance, that Tevinter lover of yours.”

Bull’s quiet for a moment. “Yeah. Might get ugly. I’m not really looking forward to it.”

“Well, if you find you don’t have the stomach for it, I’ll be happy to pick up your slack,” Hawke says airily. “When do we leave?”

——

The next morning they head north.

They buy horses past Stanwick and sell them as soon as they’re over the border to pay for new mounts. (Antivan stock is nothing to sneeze at.) As they go the climate warms, which grates on Hawke; he much prefers snowstorms over summer days. When supplies are needed he’s the one who goes into civilization to purchase them. No hiding the fact that he’s not Antivan, but he knows a few tricks to deflect attention, to brush it away when it snags as he would pluck off a bur that clung to his cloak. And anyway, a Qunari in this area would be much more conspicuous. He’s also annoyed to find that he and Bull seem to work perfectly around each other. In the evenings they set up camp without any communication whatsoever. Hawke attributes it to his long-held habits of compensating for the gaps in his allies’ skills. Bull probably does the same.

There is no communication during the rides, either. Bull made weak efforts at the start, but when Hawke refused to take him up he desisted without protest. It seems the dislike is mutual.

Hawke much prefers that over the alternative.

Northeast through the Drylands. Not as direct a route as traveling through Arlathan Forest, but Hawke doesn’t even raise the topic. There are rumors of magic there, of a mangled breed, the only remnants of the ancient elves’ broken city—even the city itself gone but for a few scattered ruins, only the smallest fraction of what must once have been. Hawke does not like magic of any kind, and he notes the Iron Bull’s lip curling in something between distaste and impotent anger when he gazes upon the distant trees. Another thing they share. Hawke isn't surprised at the fact. Yes, he likes control, and he suspects Bull does too, to some degree, coming from a profession where he’s used to the dual advantages of greater skills and more information. Magic is outside of any mundane skill, and whatever information one might find about it is inevitably contradicted elsewhere.

So they avoid the forest and take their roundabout route to the coast.

Their ship is small but seaworthy, their passage arranged from Skyhold. “We have to pass through the Boeric,” Bull tells him as they set off. “We’ll start on the north coast of Seheron. I was stationed in the south, and this’ll go smoother if no one recognizes me.”

Hawke grunts in response and goes to the forecastle.

The journey is calm for the first couple of days, but as soon as they pass the archipelago that stretches between Seheron and Par Vollen, the waters grow choppy, and Hawke spends more time belowdecks so as not to get sprayed with seawater. He’s aware that he’s far out of his area of expertise here and will soon be almost entirely reliant on the Qunari’s knowledge and experience. It’s not a situation he’s looking forward to.

On the fifth day the ship drops anchor and Hawke and Bull take the launch in to shore.

Bull rows most of the way while Hawke eyes the coastline. Here great sandstone cliffs rise high into the air, with salt-crusted boulders gathered at the base. Not an ideal place to make a landing, but they won’t be observed, at least, which is more important than ease of passage. Hawke gazes up at the top of the cliff, where thick emerald-green leaves bend and wave as if beckoning them up.

“We’re climbing that, aren’t we?” Hawke says.

“You got it,” Bull replies. “That gonna be a problem?”

Hawke levels at him a withering look, and Bull shrugs in response. “Just thought I’d ask.”

At the base of the cliff they find a boulder to clamber up on and scuttle the launch. They must not leave traces. Hawke’s used to it, having spent years as a fugitive with Fenris; so many times they’d had to flee when the forces of the Divine came just a little too close, abandoning their camp, taking only what they were carrying as they fled. He watches the boat sink with a sense of rightness. Shedding attachments means less parts of him stretched out, clinging to things that he can’t control. Less exposure, less vulnerability. It means safety.

“Careful.” Bull slings his pack over his shoulders. “This stone’s soft. Nasty habit of breaking under your toes. So don’t rush.”

Hawke has the brief, childish notion of trying to beat the Qunari to the top—no simple task despite his own skill, as the Qunari’s got longer limbs—but he banishes the thought. Stupid to imperil himself for pride. Then Bull nods at the cliff. “You go ahead of me. You fall, I’ll have an easier time catching you than the other way around. Try to warn me first, though. You probably don’t want to land on my horns.”

Hawke lifts an eyebrow. “I know you’re enormous and all, but I’m not exactly dainty myself.”

“Ah, I’m not worried. You’re, what, eighteen stone? Nineteen?”

Hawke exhales and wonders how much else the Qunari’s picked up just by looking at him. “Thereabouts.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty strong. Go ahead.”

Hawke goes with caution, his fingers finding little ledges left by scales of fallen stone, his boots jamming into long cracks that split the cliff face. He plans his route as he goes, shunting sideways once or twice to reach a craggier spot. A longer climb than he’s used to—he did the walls of Skyhold a couple of times for fun, but even they weren’t this high. Near the end he finds his fingers starting to cramp, and stops, wedging both his boots into a wide crack, leaning against the rock. Shit.

“You all right up there?”

As much a goad as an innocent question. Damn it all. Hawke starts climbing again.  _Ow._  Almost there. He hopes he doesn’t fall. Rather not have one of those Qunari horns jab him in the ass.

At last he heaves himself over the edge of the cliff and clambers forward onto flat ground, crushing little green plants under his palms.

He sits back on his heels and waits for Bull to join him. He’s never seen jungles, and spends a moment just staring, a bit in awe. The entire jungle floor is carpeted in green, with vegetation thick and waist-high around the fat, scalloped tree trunks. Squinting up, he finds the canopy isn’t so dense, and plenty of light shines down to reach the plants below.

Covering their tracks will be a nightmare.

“Damn, it’s been a long time.” Bull shades his eyes. “Most of these plants are safe to eat. Most of ‘em taste like crap, too, but there are a few good ones. And then there are the poisonous ones. I’ll point ‘em out as we go.”

Hawke rises, thinking again on what Bull said about the area during their journey.  _Mostly Tal-Vashoth here. A few settlements on the shore, some deeper inland. Vints got a presence to the east, there’s a fortress there._ “Let’s move.”

It’s around midday. Still plenty of time to go scavenge a stray Tal-Vashoth. Although this damned heat is sucking the energy straight out of him—not to mention fraying his patience. He’s lightly armored for the journey but even that’s too much; soon there’s sweat trickling down his back, and he wipes his forehead.

“Yeah, the heat sucks for southerners.” Bull goes beside him, glancing up now and then at the sun to maintain their course. “But I’m told you get used to it.”

“Fenris would love this,” Hawke mutters absently.

A laugh. “Bet he hates those Fereldan winters, though.”

Hawke realizes then he’s discussing Fenris with the man who tried to brainwash him into serving the Qun, and decides to put a stop to that. “I expect the cold doesn’t get to you.”

“Nah. Plenty of padding.” Bull pats his stomach. “And I’ve discovered that those long winter nights are a whole lot warmer with someone else lying next to you.”

That’s as much conversation as Hawke is willing to dredge up right now, and they continue in silence.

He, too, glances up as they go. Bull’s taking them parallel to the coast, eastward. Toward the Tevinter fortress. Coming in, the ship was too far out for them to see the fortress, but apparently it’s situated on a cliff overhanging the ocean. Very defensible, which is why the Qunari haven’t managed to take it yet. Hawke estimates it’s two or three days’ travel there from their landing spot—maybe more, with this terrain. And anyway, they have some information to gather along the way.

There’s a frantic rustling up ahead, and Hawke drops reflexively, hiding himself in the foliage. Bull is crouched beside him. “Want to go take a look?” he murmurs.

Hawke being the stealthier one, of course. So he glides forward, finding holes in the undergrowth so he might minimize the noise he makes. A burst of agitated movement followed by silence almost certainly means an animal, and he goes without much concern.

He finds the source. It is an animal, although they don’t have these in the south—a sort of cross between a cat and a dog, with short fur and a long tail that’s currently caught in a trap. When it sees him it renews its struggling, but the trap is too deeply embedded in the ground, and it only rips its own tail further. Hawke rises and beckons.

Bull approaches and puts his hands on his hips. “Oh, these guys. We used to call ‘em  _zaboh._  Means…’curly,’ I guess. Because of their tails. They taste pretty good.”

“Someone’s going to be along to check this sooner or later.” Hawke glances around for a good hiding place. There are plenty. “We’ll grab them then.”

Bull grunts. “This trap is Tal-Vashoth make. The grabbing might not be that easy.”

A generous way of reminding Hawke that most of his skills in battle are worthless against Qunari. Hawke sighs. “Well, if I can’t do it, how about I drive them toward you and you take them down?”

Bull nods. “Sounds good to me.”

——

The heat’s nearly enough to make him fall asleep.

Of course, if he does that, he’ll fall thirty feet to the forest floor, which isn’t ideal. Instead he shifts, settling himself back against the tree trunk, his legs extended along the sturdy branch holding him up. Idly he wonders what Fenris is doing right now. It’s mid-afternoon; he might be in the city, visiting with Aveline and Donnic’s daughter while they’re working. Maybe he’s shopping for food. Maybe he’s fishing—or trying, anyway. Maybe he’s on a job, playing bodyguard.

Hawke shuts his eyes for a moment. Better than here, whatever it is. Tiring being around someone he hates day in and day out. He can’t wait to get back and kiss Fenris a dozen times, and maybe persuade him to go for a quick naked swim in the river if it’s still warm enough that far south—

A rustling in the jungle.

Hawke rouses himself from his idyllic daydream. Work to do. Time to get his hands dirty. Been a while since he’s done that—especially if they’re going to get as dirty as he expects them to—and he finds he’s vaguely looking forward to it. As if this time he’s spend cultivating domesticity in that little house outside Kirkwall was some sort of act, some temporary assignment, and this is the truth of the matter. This is  _what he does._  His skills have gone unused, covered over, and now he feels them beg for breath.

The Qunari (Tal-Vashoth, although the species is still—ah, it doesn’t matter) strides through the undergrowth. Alone—good. Easier that way. He’s short but stocky, with two broken horns, one stubbier than the other. His skin is a deep mottled blue, darker than most Qunari Hawke’s seen. Maybe that’s their version of tanning. Hawke crouches on the branch, staying perfectly still, hidden among the leaves.

The Tal-Vashoth comes closer, and closer. The  _zaboh_  struggles in its trap, to no end. The hunter kneels—

Hawke drops, his knee jamming into the hunter’s back. The man lets out a surprised yelp, cut off when Hawke wraps an arm around his neck—and both legs around his chest, so it won’t be so easy for him to sneak in a nasty elbow to the ribs.

The hunter stands up. Shit. Eighteen stone is a lot for a human to carry, but most Tal-Vashoth probably weigh that much by the time they’re just starting to sprout facial hair. Then he staggers backward, and Hawke braces for the impact, the hard— _thud_  against the tree trunk, and it knocks the breath out of him but he keep his grip tight.

A shape looms out of the foliage. The Iron Bull, with a handaxe. He strikes at the hunter’s temple, pommel-first.

The hunter falls, Hawke on top of him. He moves weakly. Bull deals him another blow, and he stills.

Hawke disentangles himself and takes in a deep breath. Ow. “Well, we’ve got our first source of information.”

“Yeah. You good?” Bull stows the handaxe at his belt.

“Fine. Nothing’s broken.”

“All right then.” Bull slings his pack off his shoulder and withdraws a coil of rope. “Let’s take him out to the cliff-edge and see what he’s got.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: First I need to apologize for the fact that the majority of my recent stories involve someone’s fingers/arms/hands getting chopped off. I don’t know how this happened. ON THAT NOTE…here’s chapter 2

The sunset is stunning. 

Hawke sits with his boots dangling off the edge of the cliff, the waves crashing far below, wrapping around the boulders in swirls of green and white. Bands of clouds layer the horizon, and the ember-orange light soaks into their bellies and smears across the sky, the overeager stroke of an amateur’s brush. Past the glittering water a heart of pink burns hidden below the edge of the earth, like a peony weighted by rain drooping behind the garden wall, just out of reach.

The Tal-Vashoth screams again, high and rasping. He might need some water. Hawke puts the information in its right place. Water could be a reward to offer at the right moment, something the hunter might earn.  

Hawke rises and stretches, rubbing his aching ribs. Not broken, but he’ll bruise tomorrow. A few yards to his left Bull is working on their prisoner. The second shoulder’s been popped out of its socket—even from here Hawke can see the bulge of bone at the front of the shoulder against the dark blue skin, the sharp angle off the edge of the man’s silhouette that was rounded once. It’s a very painful injury, true—Hawke’s had a few of those in his time—but it’s also reversible. Hawke doesn’t know why Bull’s bothering. They don’t need this man beyond whatever information he gives up. 

Bull is crouched, steady and solemn. “Why have the Tal-Vashoth allied with Tevinter?” 

The hunter’s lying on his side, his ankles tied, his wrists bound in front of him. His face is turned into the ground, and beads of blood shine ruddy black on the grass from his broken nose. “Tell you what,” he hisses. “Why don’t you throw that viddathari of yours into the sea? Then maybe I’ll think about talking to you.”

He thinks they’re Qunari, which puts him in an opposing position to them. But it’s better than knowing they’re Inquisition. Bull puts one hand on his shoulder and with the other grasps his elbow. Then he manipulates the disjoined socket. 

More screaming, flecks of blood flying from his nose and lips. Bull’s reassured Hawke there’s no one out here, but Hawke’s senses still comb the environment in the background of his awareness, scanning for ambush. 

Bull sits back. “It’s a small question. We’re not looking for details.” _Not yet._ “Just the reason, that’s all.”

The hunter shivers. “Fuck you,” he says weakly.

“Mind if I take a crack at him?” Hawke asks. 

Bull eyes Hawke for a moment, calculating. Hawke waits, annoyed. Why is this necessary? They need the information. What does it matter who gets it, or how?

“Yeah.” Bull stands. “All yours.” 

Good.

Hawke twists the hunter’s arm, provoking another scream, and pins his hand under one knee. “All right.” He draws a dagger—fat-bladed, the tip a gentle curve off the straight rear edge. “Here’s how it goes. I’m going to ask you a question. If I don’t hear the response I’m looking for, I’m going to cut off a finger. Then I’m going to ask again. If you still don’t talk to me, I’m going to cut off another finger. I’m not going to give you much time to answer. I suggest you think quickly.” He presses the knife to the knuckle of the man’s fifth finger, adjusting it a little until the heel of the blade digs into the ridge where the two bones meet. “Why have the Tal-Vashoth allied with Tevinter?”

The man’s eyes widen. Perfect. “Wait—please don’t—“

Hawke leans all his weight on the knife.

Hard to keep it steady through the tough ligament sheath, but he’s spent plenty of time honing the edge and it sinks through the tissue, scraping a little on the end of one bone but then diving between to separate them.

The hunter screams again. Hawke readjusts to the next finger and asks again, louder, so the man can hear him: “Why have the Tal-Vashoth allied with Tevinter?”

“Please, I have a daughter, don’t— _aagh!”_

Two fingers gone. Eight left. Hawke doesn’t think he’ll have to spend all of them to extract what he needs. And if he does, well, there’s always the eyes. _Those_ should provoke a response. He lifts his knee to rotate the hand, brushes the severed fingers out of the way. “Why have the Tal-Vashoth allied with Tevinter?”

“I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you, just _stop!”_

Hawke sits back and waits. The man is quiet for a moment, heaving in breaths, until Hawke kneels on his hand again and then he starts babbling, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, just listen—we were getting attacked, hard, by your covert forces—“ the Qunari covert forces, probably some branch of the Ben-Hassrath— “these ambushes in the middle of the night where they’d lob gaatlok into our villages, and something else, something like gaatlok but it—stuck to things, it was bad. It burned and wouldn’t go out. My family and I barely escaped, and when we found somewhere else to settle we heard this was happening all over these jungles. And then we started hearing that the Vints had been—defending us. Their mages curbed the fire, their soldiers got the kids out, or the people who couldn’t escape themselves. 

“I guess they were worried about this stuff too. So they came to us, they offered an alliance. We were stuck. Our people were already dying in droves, burning to death. So we said yes. And we picked up and moved, and they’ve provided supplies—“

“Picked up and moved?” Bull interrupts.

The hunter nods, his face drawn in pain. “Toward the fortress. They wanted to pull us all in, so the Qunari couldn’t just pick us off, and to bulk up the fortress’s defenses. I don’t know what it’s like on the rest of the island, but the attacks here haven’t been so bad since we made that agreement. Their mages are better trained to take care of that gaatlok…stuff than ours are.”

Hawke combs his beard absently, thoughtful. “Tell me about the fortress.”

The hunter hesitates. “I—I don’t know much about it, I’ve never been near it, much less inside. They’ve pulled some of the warriors close in, but I’m not a warrior—“

Hawke cuts him off. “I didn’t ask what you _couldn’t_ tell me. I asked what you could.”

The hunter shakes his head. “I don’t know! I don’t know any more, I _swear!”_

Probably true, but Hawke needs to be sure, and he flattens the man’s hand again, positioning his knife at the third knuckle. The man screams, or maybe begs, or some combination of both. Hawke talks over him. “The fortress. Give me something.”

“I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t—“

_“Wait.”_

That’s Bull. Hawke looks up, his knife poised, the skin just barely broken beneath it. 

Bull jerks his head. Hawke pauses, but he rises slowly. The hunter heaves in harsh, panicked breaths. 

Bull kneels, untying the man’s wrists. He tries to squirm away, but Bull jumps in. _“Hey,_ hey, just relax. You’re gonna hurt a whole lot less in a minute.”

The hunter stills. Bull grasps one arm and lifts it up and out, massaging the shoulder joint with his other hand. Hawke watches the displaced bulge of bone twist, slide—and disappear. The strangled cry of agony breaks off abruptly into a whimpered relief. Bull does the same on the opposite side, just as smoothly. The hunter lies on his back, tears squeezing from the corners of his eyes.

Bull waits for a moment, giving him some time to recover. Then: “You see any of these Qunari who attacked you?”

“N—no. But it _was_ them. It was gaatlok, I know the smell. And I heard them shouting from deeper in the trees.”

“Yeah. Look—what’s your name?”

The hunter watches him, wary. “Salek.”

Bull grins. “The calm spot in the middle of a storm. I like that. Here’s the thing, Salek—they’re Vints. You know Vints. They’re not interested in protecting you. You ask me, they’ve just found another way to throw you to the wolves, only they’re better at hiding it like this. You said you got a daughter? A family?”

“Yes,” Salek gasps. “Yes. My family.”

“Do yourself a favor.” Bull starts working on the ropes that bind his ankles. “Take ‘em and get out of here for a while, at least until this whole thing blows over. You know a safe spot? Away from all this?”

Salek cradles his injured hand. “Yes.” It’s nearly a sob. “Further east. The beaches are deserted, too much itchweed in the area. We’ll go there.”

“Good.” Bull’s done with the ropes, and he pulls a handkerchief from his pocket—a handkerchief?—and wraps it around Salek’s bleeding hand. “Try and keep pressure on that. And keep it away from the sand. Anyone asks, you got bitten by a _sheb-talaas.”_

The hunter holds the square of cloth to his hand and sits up gingerly. “A what?”

“Oh, you know, one of those—the cats, the big ones, with the spines all over.”

“Oh! We just call them cats.”

“Yeah, well, Qunari like their metaphors,” Bull grumbles.

Salek stands, stumbling a little. “But you’re not Qunari.”

“Not really.”

“Then—you’re Tal-Vashoth! Like us!”

Bull sighs. “Let’s just say it’s complicated. Now go on. Grab your family and get ‘em out of here.”

Hawke waits, tense as a bowstring. This is obviously the wrong call, but he can’t do anything about it—or shouldn’t; Bull could almost certainly take him down before he makes the kill. 

Salek hesitates. “Be careful.” 

Then he’s retreating into the jungle, a dark shape soon lost among the trees. Bull watches him go, then turns. “Well, at least we know what’s going on.”

“Yes.” Hawke damps his temper. No use wasting energy on shouting. “Now what was that?”

“What, me letting him go? I don’t know, he seemed like a good guy.”

“One who now knows there’s a pair of infiltrators of unknown allegiance who are interested in that fortress.”

“Ah, come on, he’s not gonna tell anyone. Even if he does still believe the bullshit the Vints have been feeding these guys, he’s not a soldier. He’ll be a whole lot happier hiding away with his familythan trying to figure all this crap out.”

_“Probably.”_

“Definitely.” Bull meets Hawke’s eye. “And anyway, after what you did, I felt kinda bad for him.”

 _“What I did?_ What I did got us the information we needed!”

“And got him stuck like this.” Bull raises his own three-fingered hand. “I’m not big on civilian casualties. You got a problem with that—well, I really don’t care. You can’t finish this job without me.”

Damn it all. He’s right—Hawke’s got too little knowledge of the area, and if he runs into an angry group of Tal-Vashoth he’s dead. Fine. Fine. “You think they’ve really fallen for it? That it’s the Qunari carrying out these attacks instead of Tevinter?”

Bull shrugs. “Some of them, maybe. I’m guessing at least a few have questions. But I doubt they have a choice. Doesn’t matter who’s doing the attacking, the Tal-Vashoth are still getting fucked over. And if the Vints are protecting their kids from getting burned alive, and handing them supplies, well, they can’t really say no, can they?”

True enough. “So the question is, why does Tevinter want all these Tal-Vashoth brought in close to their fortress? If they’d just wanted to kill them all, they could have done it with this gaatlok—substance.”

“Yeah. Looks like we got a destination.” But he doesn’t move, just watches Hawke for another moment. “Seems like cutting off some innocent person’s fingers comes pretty easy to you.”

Hawke lifts an eyebrow. “Isn’t that most of the reason I got sent on this job?”

“I know, it’s just…weird. I read Varric’s book.” As has everyone. “You sounded like a really good guy, back in Kirkwall. The kind who wouldn’t be able to cut off someone’s fingers just like that.”

“You know Varric, he lies like a rug.”

“Listen, just indulge me for a minute, okay? You can ask me whatever probing questions you want afterwards.”

Hawke thinks about it. Already plenty of tension between them—the kind that might cost the mission. A little bit of honesty could go some way towards easing it. “I might’ve been able to. In my later years there, I was learning how. It’s just another skill. You cage up the parts of you that care so they can’t get at the rest of you. Then you can act. You must have done the same, you were a spy.”

Bull grunts. “Cage ‘em up, huh? You ever let ‘em back out?”

Hawke narrows his eyes. “Yes.”

“You got a lot of friends in Kirkwall?”

He snorts. “I’m her champion. Hard to have friends with a title like that.”

“Huh. Is it now.” Then he shrugs. “Anyway. You want to ask me something?”

“What, exactly, do you see in that Tevinter?”

A full laugh. “Knew you’d ask about Dorian. He’s smart as a whip, for one. Knows what he wants. Cares what everyone else thinks of him but at the same time doesn’t give a shit. Wants to do the right thing, no matter what it costs him. And he’s _really_ pretty.”

That last part Hawke can’t argue with. The rest doesn’t sound like enough to overcome the fact that the man’s Tevinter nobility and lived comfortably as such for years. But of course Hawke didn’t expect it to. “The Tal-Vashoth said the beaches east of here were deserted.”

“Yeah, ‘cause of the itchweed.” He grimaces. “Hate that stuff. But if it’ll keep us out of anyone’s way, that’s probably the route we want. Won’t get there tonight, though.”

“Then we’ll go a little further and camp on the cliffs.” Hawke shoulders his pack. “Try not to roll off the edge in your sleep. I’d miss your company.”

——

Hawke discovers the itchweed doesn’t just make him itch—that could be avoided, he’s got long sleeves and gloves and trousers. It also makes him sneeze. A lot. It’s a good thing no one can stand the stuff, or they’d almost certainly be heard. Bull would, anyway. That enormous chest cavity makes for some very impressive sneezes. 

“Damn plants,” Bull growls. “Can’t burn ‘em, either. The smoke is poisonous. Ah—“

Another sneeze. The whole situation is actually rather comical, and Hawke’s grateful for it. In unfamiliar territory, with an ally who hardly merits the word, the tension was starting to worry at his patience. But with both of them red-eyed and weepy, sniffling pitifully as they shuffle ahead, it’s hard to maintain the vitriol. 

They walk along where the land meets the ocean. The cliffs here aren’t more than twenty feet above the water, but there isn’t a real beach yet, just a long strip of boulders at the foot of the cliff stretching for miles. Hawke prays the sand begins soon, so he and Bull can stop kicking up this evil pollen. 

“Dorian complains about stripweed.” Bull wipes at his nose. “Which is kind of like itchweed, except Tevinter and less shitty. If he were here he’d be weeping and moaning and making me carry him on my shoulders so he wouldn’t breathe so much pollen.”

“Fenris wouldn’t say a word.” Hawke smiles a little. “I’ve never heard him complain about anything, except when I get too hot at night and throw all the covers on top of him and he wakes me up by dumping them on my face.”

Bull grins. “Dorian likes to take all the covers for himself. Sometimes in the winter when I wake up I’m not sure if he’s still there because I can’t see him under the pile of blankets. Humans are so damn _small._ Well, except you.”

Hawke’s about to reply, but he sneezes again and forgets what he was going to say. 

The boulders dwindle and dwindle, at last diminishing to a rocky beach as the cliff finally drops down to sea level. “Thank the Maker,” Hawke mutters, and tacks toward the water. 

It’s windy today, which wasn’t the least bit pleasant when the breeze whipped through the itchweed but it’s coming off the sea, and it blows the pollen inland, away from them. Hawke sneezes one last time (hopes it’s one last time) as his boots meet the sharp stones. “Think it’ll storm?”

“Nah, sky’s too clear.” Bull gazes out at the horizon. Only a few wisps of white hang there, hurried along by the wind. That’s good. After all that itchweed, Hawke could use a pleasant evening. 

The itchweed seems to be endless. Bull glares at it now and then. He did live here for a number of years; it appears he’s held a grudge. Hawke prefers to look at the sea. Kirkwall is on the sea, true; but he grew up inland, and he hasn’t tired of the sight. 

“Can I ask you a question?”

Hawke glances over. “Can I stop you?”

Bull grins. “You could try.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“You ever cut a guy’s fingers off before?”

“Yes.”

Bull grunts. “He deserve it?”

“They were Tevinter, so yes, they did.”

No response. Hawke finds Bull’s leveled an unamused look at him. He sighs. “They were both complicit in Fenris’s kidnapping. They deserved it.”

“But that guy yesterday, you don’t think he deserved it, right?”

“Probably not, no.”

“You feel bad about it at all?”

Hawke rolls his eyes. “We’ve been over this. I caged all that up.”

“Yeah, but I mean—does it make a difference? That he was just some hunter checking his traps.”

That sounds a bit like an accusation. “I know it was wrong, if that’s what you’re asking. But it had to be done.”

“Not really what I was asking. But sure.”

 _“You_ didn’t seem to care all that much while I was doing it.”

“Took me by surprise. I didn’t think you’d give him that little time.”

“Right. Does this mean you have to answer one of my questions now?” Hawke says.

“Sure, why not?”

“What you did to Fenris. Was that _wrong?”_

Bull stops then, and Hawke has to turn and wait. Hawke’s seen Bull’s face turn to stone—not like the soft sandstone they climbed earlier, but more the granite some of his friends’ parents used to mine in the quarry a few towns west of Lothering, hard and unbreaking. It isn’t like that now. Now he hurts. Hawke looks closer, looks for the lie, and doesn’t find it. 

“I thought the Qun could help him,” Bull rumbles. “But I watched him fighting—at first, before the drugs got to him—and found myself thinking, _I shouldn’t be doing this_. This is a guy whose greatest pleasure in life is choosing to fight back, and the Qun doesn’t tolerate that crap. But the Qun demanded his conversion, so I thought it was my own weakness for not wanting to do it.

“It’s…still hard for me to say the Qun is _wrong._ I was raised in it, after all. And it’s helped a lot of people. But Fenris? I was an asshole letting him get re-educated like that. Taking part. So yeah, I feel like shit about it.” He sighs and starts walking again, digging out deep pits in the sand under his boots. “Glad Cullen and Dorian got there in time.”

That’s about as good an answer as Hawke was hoping for, and he follows, reserving any more probing questions for later. 

They camp on the beach that evening. With the wind, the heat isn’t so bad, and Hawke doesn’t have such a hard time sleeping. He dreams that night, of…something. Something about Fenris, and cutting off fingers. He wakes mildly ill and sits up to watch the sunrise. It’s hazy and reminds him a little of that time an entire section of Lowtown was steeped in saar-qamek, and he had to wade straight into the middle of it, his gut wrenching over and over, his throat burning as though he’d just swallowed a pint of acid. As he thinks on it he realizes the ocean surf is high enough to break around his boots and starts violently, scrambling up the beach.

“Whoa there.” Bull yawns, wiping his mouth. “You all right?”

“Fine,” Hawke mutters, and doesn’t elaborate.

After breakfast they continue on. Bull talks about Tevinter military architecture and security, in case they have to infiltrate the fortress itself. He really does know a lot, and Hawke is impressed despite himself. The land to their right rises as they travel east—not a cliff this time, but a more gentle slope. The itchweed isn’t so dominant here, and other plants wave in the breeze, taller grasses with dagger-shaped leaves or more delicate species with spindly stems and bundles of tiny white flowers at the top. They walk at the interface of sand and surf, where the pack is harder and doesn’t give so much beneath them. 

Without conversation to occupy him, Hawke’s mind wanders. If he could forget the Qunari behind him, the fortress that looms sinister before them, this might actually be pleasant. He could picture Fenris here, the clear water washing over his bare feet as he walked hand in hand with Hawke along the shore. Did Fenris ever do that, when he was younger? Before his memories were taken away? If Hawke brought him here, would he remember?

Something snags at the back of his awareness. Something missing—the quiet shifting of the sand, the echo behind him of Bull’s steady stride. Hawke turns.

Bull is gazing up at the grass at the top of the ridge, a few yards behind them. There’s a person there. A Tal-Vashoth, a little girl. 

Bull waves at her, slowly. In the same moment, he grabs Hawke’s wrist with a grip like a blacksmith’s vise. “You throw that knife and I break your arm,” he murmurs. 

Hawke’s let his hand drift behind his back, to the sheaf of throwing knives sewn into his armor. His good hand, the left. Bull’s holding his right. He could still throw and save them both from this _Maker-damned_ dilemma that isn’t even a dilemma in the first place—she’s going to run, she’s going to tell someone, and they’re blown. The balance is far out of her favor. One life versus a chance to tear up the root of this sham alliance. 

“Wave,” Bull commands. “Now.”

Hawke’s used to being the strongest one in the room, so the fact that Bull’s stronger— _much_ stronger—grates on him. Harshly. But he’d rather not finish out this mission on a broken arm. He raises his left hand and waves at the girl. 

After a moment of hesitation she waves back, shy. Then she’s off again, running through the grass. Which is apparently less itchweed now than the other, more benign species.

“Let go of me,” Hawke hisses.

Bull releases him and steps back, eyes narrowed in anger.

Hawke takes a breath so he doesn’t start shouting and tries to figure out where to start. “She’s going to tell someone.”

“You were really going to kill her? For _that?_ She was a damn kid!”

“Yes. And she’s going to tell someone, so the entire damned fortress will be on the lookout for a Fereldan and a one-eyed Qunari sneaking about—“

Bull snorts derisively. “You saw how young she was, you think she can tell you’re not a Vint?”

Hawke halts. He…hadn’t thought about that. But he shakes his head. “Even so, a human and a Qunari strolling along a supposedly deserted beach will surely raise some eyebrows.”

“Then we _work around it.”_ Bull steps forward, huge and threatening. “You can do that, can’t you? Or do those famous skills of yours only stretch so far?”

Hawke stays just where he is, the anger choking him with how dense it is, how thickly it flows, and says, “You don’t know half of what I can do.”

Bull lets out a growl of frustration, then brushes past Hawke, down the beach once more. “Come on. We hurry, we’ll get there by sundown.”

——

Bull directs them into the jungle before long for cover on the approach. The light is only just starting to fade when they reach the treeline.

The land ahead has been cleared of trees, and two or three miles beyond the great Tevinter fortress sits abiding on the cliff, spires of black metal and spined statues bearing enormous halberds silhouetted against the orange sky. “Shit,” Hawke mutters. “That thing’s enormous.”

“Yeah—what do you say we worry about the camps first?” Bull replies.

The rise up to the fortress is packed with military camps. The ones closer to the jungle are Tal-Vashoth—no rich-dyed cloth tents for them, but hardier structures, treated leather stretched over curved frames. Nearer to the fortress gates Hawke thinks he sees smaller figures moving about. Tevinter soldiers.

Bull sighs. “Let’s make a sweep down the treeline. Survey the area.”

Gathering information. Hawke likes the sound of that. He turns to head south. 

There’s a sharp, brutal impact to his temple. _Strong,_ he thinks, and curses himself for a fool as his consciousness slips away. 


	3. Chapter 3

Hawke wakes with a throbbing headache.

Something sticky in his eye. Blood, probably. He blinks it away and tries to figure out where he is.

Sitting. Room of stone, pale stone. Fortress stone. Torches high on the circular walls. The door is wooden and thick. Can’t move his arms. Can’t move his legs. Tied to a chair, it seems, wrists behind his back. Not tied, shackled. Might be able to slip that. Not much use in it.

The Iron Bull is slouching against the wall. Can’t slip a Qunari.

“I should have killed you,” Hawke murmurs.

“You’re awake.” Bull straightens.

“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”

“What, in that clearing in the north of Ferelden?” Bull approaches, leaning down. “When I was lying in the grass with my arm hanging off? When you were about to kill Dorian for having the audacity to protect me? When Fenris took your hand and  _begged_  you not to do it? You should have done it then?”

“Yes,” Hawke hisses.

Bull’s severity breaks then into a mild amusement. “So you think I’m betraying you? How do you know this wasn’t just part of my plan to break us both into the fortress?”

“Because you would have told me.” Hawke squeezes his eyes shut for a second. That’s a  _nasty_  headache. “Easier that way. More options. But you didn’t. So this  _was_  part of your plan to break us in, I suppose. Only you’ve no intention of breaking me out.”

“You got me.” Bull tips his head in acknowledgement. “I told you how I felt like crap about what I did to Fenris. So this is me trying to make it up to him.”

Hawke lifts an eyebrow. “Come again?”

“He shouldn’t be with a guy like you,” Bull replies. “Well, more accurately, no one should be with a guy like you.”

Anger. Anger. Hawke dams it up. Not helpful. Not yet. “And who are you to say that?”

“I got half an ounce of decency. Which is all I need to make this decision. People shouldn’t lie to their partners.”

“What are you  _talking_  about? I haven’t lied to him.”

Bull watches Hawke levelly. “Did you tell him what you were doing when you came up here?”

Shit. “No.”

“Were you ever going to tell him?”

No. “Is that what all this is about? What if I promise on my mother’s grave to give him every gory detail when I get back? Then will you let me go?”

Bull smirks. “Nice try. But that’s not the only reason.”

“Let me guess. Because I cut that man’s fingers off?”

“Because you cut his fingers off and you didn’t care. That’s another person whose life you just changed, for good.”

Hawke groans. “Do I have to tell you  _again—“_

“Yeah, yeah, I know, you cage it up. Only there’s nothing there to cage up. You got rid of it somewhere along the way, only you hadn’t let it touch you in so long that you didn’t even notice it was gone.”

“How in the  _Void_  would you know that about me?”

“Ben-Hassrath,” Bull rumbles. “I read people.”

“Rowan Hawke,” he shoots back. “I hide things.”

Bull laughs. “Not since you landed on Seheron. You haven’t hidden anything from me. Haven’t even tried. Or are you going to tell me that was all a trick too? You’ve been fighting some secret pain? Drowning in  _all that guilt?”_

No. No, he hasn’t, Hawke realizes. Hasn’t even needed to make the effort to wall it up, because it never bothered him in the first place. But that’s normal, that’s what he  _does—_

“If you cared once, you don’t anymore.” The torchlight flickers dully on Bull’s horns. “Maybe you did cage it up, at the start. Maybe for a while. But you discovered later that you could just cut out the middleman. You don’t want to let the guilt touch you? Why have it at all? Easier simply to act, to  _only_  act. Not to think of the consequences, or even the reasons.”

“That’s a  _lot_  of conjecture.”

“Not conjecture. Deduction,” Bull says. “Why are you here? Why did you take this job and come to Seheron?”

Hawke shuts his eyes again. Even the torches are too bright for his headache. “Because the Inquisition needed me.”

“You don’t give a shit about the Inquisition. You hate the Inquisitor.”

“Fine. To stop Tevinter from taking over all of bloody Thedas.”

“Bullshit.”

Hawke glares. “What do you want me to say, exactly? This’ll go a lot faster if you give me a hint.”

“The truth,” Bull retorts. “I’ll know it when I hear it.”

Hawke leans back in the chair and thinks about it for a second. Why  _did_  he come up here? “I was restless, I suppose.”

“That’s better.” Bull nods. “Not enough people to stab in Kirkwall, huh?”

“Everything  _is_  rather peaceful in the Marches these days.”

“What do you do down there?”

“In Kirkwall?” Hawke shrugs. “Trapping. Potion-making. Sometimes helping out the city guard, if they need it.”

“Do you like it? Your life there? Is it what you wanted?”

_No._

That’s the first answer that comes to him, but he keeps it back. “I’m with Fenris. That’s what I wanted.”

“Beyond that.” Bull paces a little, as if impatient. “What do  _you_  want, Hawke? What do you want your life to look like?”

 _A house outside Kirkwall._  That’s the reflexive answer, the one he gave Fenris, although it was mostly because Fenris wants that and Hawke wants him to be happy. In reality the daily life seems to him…aimless. Purposeless. He likes being with Fenris, but outside that…. So what does he want? To kill slavers, or Qunari? More so than to set traps or make potions, but even that seems just a better way to keep his hands busy.

“You’re awfully quiet.”

Hawke looks up.

“That’s what you gave up,” Bull tells him. “You got rid of the guilt, because you were on the run for four years and you had to do a hundred terrible things to survive and you saw a thousand things even worse than that—“  _Larannis,_  Hawke thinks instantly,  _Larannis and Cornelia and the forty-eight people she killed just to provoke me,_  “—and it hurt less not to care. It hurt less not to care about the innocent people killed by demons, or captured by slavers, or taken by Qunari. All those things you couldn’t stop, you, the Champion, the people’s Champion. So you cut out the guilt. But everything else went with it. Hopes and dreams, friends, even the desire for friends. You don’t want anything. You act because it gives your mind something to chew on, something besides the black space where  _you_  used to be.”

“I already told you.” Hawke feels cast adrift, and struggles for purchase. “I want Fenris. I want him to be happy.”

Bull snorts. “I seem to remember you tried to cut him out too.”

_“What?”_

“The second time you tried to kill me, when Cullen pulled the bait-and-switch. You fled Skyhold alone. Took two countries’ worth of scandal to flush you out of hiding.”

Hawke lunges forward, the cuffs digging into his wrists. “I wasn’t  _cutting him out!_  I thought I was keeping him safe!”

Bull watches him with an amused smile. “Right. Nothing to do with the fact that he was the one thing left in your life you couldn’t control. The only vulnerability. The only thing that could hurt you.”

“You have  _no_  idea what you’re talking about. With any of this.”

“I don’t? Tell me, what did you do after you left Skyhold? No, wait—let me guess. Hurled yourself at a bunch of nice sharp blades in the name of…you went to Tevinter, right? Freeing slaves, then. You kept getting hurt—no backup anymore—but you did it anyway, always hunting down the next group. They told me you came back just before I got out—so that means you were doing it for six weeks.” Bull nods. “Good thing Varric’s plan worked. I wouldn’t have given you more than eight.”

Hawke’s head is spinning. How did he know? How did he know? When Hawke finally heard the news and limped back to Kirkwall he was covered in cuts and bruises Fenris wasn’t the least bit happy—but Hawke didn’t care about the wounds, hadn’t cared until he saw Fenris’s face break open at the sight of them—

“In Qunlat we have this word for a person you really care about— _kadan._  When I call Dorian  _kadan,_  it means he’s my heart.” Bull’s face tightens a little in anger. “If you’re Fenris’s heart, then his heart is empty. And if he’s yours—you’re smothering him.”

Hawke flinches. He won’t hurt Fenris, can’t hurt him, not more, not again—

“So yeah. I’m leaving you here, and he won’t have to live with a ruthless liar and torturer anymore. Don’t worry, I’ll tell him some bullshit story about how you sacrificed yourself to save…I don’t know. I’ll come up with something before I head back.”

“You stay away from him,” Hawke growls.  _“Far_  away. If he never sees you again, it’ll be too soon.”

“If—“ Bull shakes his head and smiles, softly. “I guess you didn’t know. Fenris and I play cards together whenever you two stop by Skyhold.”

What?

Hawke snorts. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

“He’s shit at Wicked Grace. Only knows half the hands, and when he’s got something good he always watches everyone else twice as much as when he’s got crap. Diamondback’s better for him—that one’s about strategy, doesn’t depend so much on bluffing. But he likes Wicked Grace better.” Bull pauses. “Am I wrong?”

No. He’s right, about everything.

“It started with Blackwall,” Bull continues. “After word got around that I’d betrayed the Inquisition for the Qun and then turned around and declared myself Tal-Vashoth, he was my biggest defender. Really believes in the whole do-good-to-atone-for-the-past idea. And Fenris gets along with Blackwall. They came down to the Herald’s Rest for cards one night. Now, no one knows what I did, exactly—just the fact of the betrayal. So when Fenris saw me and jumped out of his skin, no one knew what was going on.

“I offered to leave. I was on my way out, actually, and everyone was  _really_  confused, Sera was trying to get me to stay, she was drunk, it was loud. Blackwall sort of looked like he’d realized he fucked up but didn’t know how. Then Fenris stopped me. I guess he’d heard by then. About how I was Tal-Vashoth. And he told me he didn’t mind if I was in the game too.

“I almost left anyway. But I thought it might be better like this. If he saw me this way, as a guy who plays cards with friends instead of kidnapping people. If he could beat me at a hand or two.

“So I stayed. I let him beat me, even though Varric still cleaned up. And afterwards when he and Varric were at the bar, I came up to talk to him. Told him I really didn’t mind leaving, if he felt better about it. He said he didn’t want to be alone with me, which, yeah, I get that. But he said if the others trusted me, after all that, then he could believe I wasn’t dangerous anymore. Helps he knows the Qun from when he lived in the north. Knows what it can do.”

Hawke listens, faintly numb. He’d avoided the Herald’s Rest whenever he was there, specifically because of Bull. “Fenris never told me,” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” Bull says. “Probably didn’t want you to come stab me to death in my sleep just in case.”

There’s silence for a minute. Hawke is still trying to internalize what he’s just learned. That Fenris isn’t afraid—is  _better_ , has moved forward, out of the sea cave into a place where he can be at ease playing cards against the man who tried to re-educate him. And Hawke never knew it. Never  _saw_  it, even thought it was right there in front of him.

“You got any friends at Skyhold?”

Hawke rouses himself. “No. We were never there for more than a couple of days in a row.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t have enough time.”

“Right.”

“Fenris did,” Bull says. “Like I said, he and Blackwall get along well. He hated Sera at first, but a few hands in and they found out they had a lot to talk about. He made friends with the gardener. Heard her make a move on him—she didn’t know who he was. He had to let her down gently. Even saw him talking to Dorian a couple of times. The two of them were drinking once with Varric and Sera and she started making these retching noises so Varric helped her out to the back of the building. And Fenris and Dorian just…kept talking, even though the other two never came back. I don’t think they’re  _friends,_  really. But still.” A half-grin. “Funny how a guy who doesn’t give a shit about tact is so much better at making friends than you and that famous charisma of yours.”

Fenris is fine. Fenris is fine. Doesn’t need protecting.

“He’ll be all right without you. He’s a strong guy, he can move on.”

He needs—not  _needs._  He deserves a partner.

Which Hawke hasn’t been. Not for a while. Their life, their idyllic life that Hawke can’t invest himself in—has  _refused_  to invest himself in, each rough-and-tumble laugh-filled visit with Aveline’s daughter leaving him with only the faintest sense of contentment, a feeling that fades before he’s even got back to the house. Each route through the woods to check the traps or gather herbs a blessing if only because it means his feet are moving, he has a place to go, and when he is still, sitting on the porch in one of their rough-hewn chairs, he is always,  _always_ waiting for something to happen, something that will fill the nagging sense of purposelessness, of  _nothingness_ that swells to bursting inside him—but he might as well ask the river to stop flowing as it makes its wide, lazy way past their brand new home. All he wants is for Fenris to be safe. But Fenris  _is_ safe.

So there’s nothing left to want. There’s nothing left at all but cutting off a man’s fingers for expediency, and killing a little girl for ease of passage.

“Shit,” Hawke whispers. “Fenris would kill me. If he saw what I did.”

Bull leans a little closer. “What’s that?”

“He’d kill me. He’d be hopping mad. Oh, Maker. I shouldn’t have come here.”

“But you’re the best guy for the job.”

“I suppose,” Hawke says quietly, and a shiver runs through him, though he doesn’t know why. “Only—I don’t think I want to be.”

Bull grunts and starts picking at one of his horns. After a second he comes away with a dull gray pin. “Well, that’s too bad.” He goes behind the chair and kneels. “Because we still gotta do it.”

The shackles clink slightly, then one cuff falls free. It takes Hawke a moment to understand. “You—you’re not leaving me here.”

“Nah, you’re good.” The other cuff opens. “Long as you promise you’ll talk to Fenris about all this when you get back.”

Hawke smiles weakly. “Shouldn’t you have released me  _after_  extracting that promise?”

Bull starts working on the ankle cuffs. “I trust you.”

“Really?”

“I’ve watched you when you talk about Fenris. Not hard to tell how much you care about him. You’ll do it for his sake, at least. Should do it for yours too, though.”

Hawke rubs his wrists, still somewhat bewildered, although clarity is starting to return to him. “So all this—you were…fixing my relationship?”

Bull stands, stretching. “I told you, I got a lot to make up for. But listen—if you want to get better, it’s going to take work. You don’t just decide once. You have to make that choice over and over, every time it shows up in front of you.”

Hawke thinks about it. Making the choice—

—to let it get to him, he supposes. To let it hurt him. To care. Then maybe he’ll come back to himself. He’ll be the man he once was, in Kirkwall all those years ago—happy and excited, surrounded by friends, full of purpose even on days off when he did nothing more than read a book or play cards at the Hanged Man. And full, always, of so much love he could hardly contain it all.

He stands, stomping the floor to get the pins and needles out of his feet. “So how do we get out of here?”

“I told them I’m Tal-Vashoth from the western half of Seheron, and I tracked you here across the island. Said I had some really important information about you I’d only give to someone in charge. And they were suspicious of me anyway, so they left me down here. They’ll be sending an interrogator down eventually, plus a soldier or two as backup. I told them they might want to send someone really big, because you might try to pull something and you’re not so small yourself.”

“Ah. Good. So a harder fight, then.”

“Yeah.” Bull grins. “But you’ll fit into the guy’s armor when we’re done.”

That will be nice. Uniforms are the best disguise, but Hawke always has to search out a particularly large enemy soldier, because he simply can’t stuff himself into any old tabard. He sits down again and clasps his hands behind his back to give the appearance of captivity. Bull leans against the wall, arms folded.

Hawke contains his smile. Fooling the enemy, more than picking them off unawares, more than overwhelming them, is his favorite strategy. Second favorite, perhaps; he does favor the utter chaos method, but, paradoxically, such a tactic necessitates a lot of prior knowledge and careful planning. Meanwhile, a ruse is often almost entirely extemporaneous. It’s rather thrilling, walking out into hostile territory with nothing but some well-placed words and the correct heraldry to shield you from an entire military outpost coming down on your head.  

“How’s your Tevene?” Bull murmurs.

“Not bad,” Hawke says. “Fenris has taught me some. He says I’ve got the accent down.”

“Good.”

They’re quiet as the minutes slip by. Patience. Hawke has infinite patience. It’s an excellent weapon—an imperfect strike landed quickly is preferable in some situations, but it is always better to have the option of a perfect one long-delayed. Even better to watch time make one’s foes complacent, or frustrated, or afraid, all while Hawke sits and waits, content and ready. From how relaxed Bull looks, it appears his patience is no less well-honed.

At last the faint sound of footsteps slips through the crack beneath the door.

Hawke listens and tries to count. Bull flashes a sign at him—three fingers. Three of them. Hawke nods.

The scraping of a key in the lock, and the heavy door swings open.

Best to wait here, to wait until they’re all in the room and can’t go running off to alert anyone else. The small space will make a surprise attack somewhat harder, but Hawke has remedies for that. There are indeed three of them—the first looks like no more than a bureaucrat, but she is accompanied by two soldiers, lightly armored. They’re carrying…halberds. Hawke contains his amusement. They brought halberds into a room that’s eight feet in diameter and already holds five people?

One of them shuts the door. Good. The interrogator eyes Hawke, then turns to Bull. “So what’s all this about?” she says, in the King’s Tongue.

Hawke starts snarling at her in Tevene.

Various curses and nasty threats. He lunges forward, too, for good measure. She jumps, and the two guards begin to lower their halberds, only to realize they’ve barely got room for it.

All attention is on Hawke now. Bull slips behind them and makes his move.

He breaks the first one’s neck, a quick lift and twist of the skull done with terrific efficiency. At the snapping noise the other two turn, and Hawke explodes forward, putting all his momentum behind a looping punch that hits the interrogator square in the jaw. She crumples, senseless. The second one’s trying to fend off Bull; as Hawke watches, Bull seizes the haft of the man’s halberd and snaps it in two. The guard draws his sword and tries to retreat, but his back hits the wall with a  _thump_. Bull grabs the sword by its blade and yanks it away, flipping it in the air and driving it down through the gap between the man’s helm and his cuirass.

Hawke sighs. Mortal men were not meant to fight Qunari. He holds his hand out, and Bull passes the sword; Hawke uses it to slit the interrogator’s throat.

“Here.” Bull nudges the first guard’s body with his foot. “This one doesn’t have any blood on it.”

Hawke makes a face at the uniforms. Chain shirts, as always. “I hate metal armor. It’s so loud.”

“I think you can get away with just the cloak, helm, and the plate pieces. And the halberd.”

“What am I going to do with a  _halberd?”_

“Fucked if I know.”

Hawke sighs and starts undressing the corpse. “I don’t suppose you managed to smuggle any of my weapons in here? I can make do with a shortsword, but—“

“Yeah, hang on.” Bull unbuckles his pauldron. From the inner surface he withdraws Hawke’s two sheaves of flat-bladed throwing knives. “There’s these. And your poisons.” He offers a pouch from his belt. “Had to leave your daggers. They would’ve found those when they searched me.”

“Not to worry. Used to leaving things behind on the road.” He fits the throwing knives at his lower back again and ties the pouch at his waist.

A few minutes later and he looks about as Tevinter as he’s going to. The helm is visored and covers his face—fortunate, as his Fereldan features might give him away otherwise. The cuirass is heavy and annoying, and with gauntleted hands he draws the cloak close over his shoulders to conceal the lack of chainmail. Then he picks up the halberd. “Presentable?”

Bull gives him a shrug. “Guess we’ll find out.”

“Right.” Hawke takes a deep breath. “Are you ready to do some bluffing?”

Bull grins. “Do you need to ask?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Last chapter! Minor to moderate gore warning because Bull’s Reaver class finally comes into play. Always wanted to mess around with it (taking damage to hit harder?? an ability called ‘Devour’???? so much material there :’) :’) :’) ).

They climb the stairs.

A long spiral. Hawke goes beside Bull. They don’t have a specific cover— _orders,_ that’s all, almost always enough to deter the rank-and-file, who have been trained into obedience, into a fear of consequences. An encounter with an officer might demand some bluffing. That’ll be largely on Hawke and his base-level Tevene.

He prays for luck.

At the top of the stairs they find a wooden door, guarded on the other side by a bored-looking young man. Hawke spares him only the barest glance and does not vary his pace. Avoid rousing interest. They are not stopped.

Uniforms. Confidence. The pretense of purpose. Tools enough to destroy empires. Hawke smiles behind the wings of his helmet. The Imperium won’t fall today, but he wouldn’t mind dealing it some damage. The air is cool here. Still underground. Bull drifts left, and Hawke follows. He was unconscious on his way in; Bull will be more familiar with the layout.

There are no Tal-Vashoth here. They pass only Tevinters, ambling from one post to another. Yet neither does anyone stop them. In fact, they seem hardly to be noticed. Odd. Tal-Vashoth must not be an uncommon sight, then. So where are they? Hawke wishes he could consult with Bull, but that’s a risk, and their position is already very fragile. Instead he follows Bull’s lead and keeps his eyes open, searching for anything else out of the ordinary. As he goes he builds a map of the fortress in his head, sketching out the corridors, noting the branches they don’t take. Bull is methodical, guiding them so that they can at least lay eyes on every inch of the floor without taking them through the same hallway twice. Always their pace is unhurried. It’s nice to work with a professional. Fenris is good at what he does, but what he does mostly involves him glowing like the sun. Not exactly the best mode of operation for stealth missions.

“Hey!”

Hawke turns, calm as ever, and remembers his Tevene. “Yes?”

“You’re going the wrong way.” There’s another soldier down the hall, and he jerks his head. “It’s this way.”

Hawke nods, deferential. Boring. “Sorry.” He grasps Bull’s elbow and leads him forward. The soldier only looked at him, not Bull; obviously he’s the one with the perceived authority here.

“Don’t worry about it. This place is—“ Some word Hawke doesn’t know. “Here, I’ll show you.” The man gestures.

Hawke smiles. “Thank you.”

A lead, at last. Hawke does not try to make conversation. Better the Tevinter think him awkward than discover his vocabulary is suspiciously narrow. He glances up at Bull, finds he’s wearing an absent expression. As unremarkable as a one-eyed Qunari can be.

The air grows warmer as they go. There’s an odd scent, too, something of metal.

The soldier stops by a dark wooden door. “You might have to shout, they don’t always notice you.” He hesitates, and for the first time looks Bull up and down. “Why don’t I help you…escort our friend here?”

Shit. “I was ordered to bring him alone.” Hawke responds with assurance but without hostility.

The soldier shrugs. “As you say.”

Then he goes back the way they came. Hawke waits until he rounds the corner. “Are you ready?” he murmurs.

Bull gives him a curt nod.

Hawke opens the door.

A staircase heading down. He goes forward as smoothly as he can to avoid jangling these damn armor plates hanging off of him. There’s a faint rushing noise coming from below. Bull’s lip curls. “Blood.”

Hawke glances up. “What?”

“I can smell it.”

They descend. From below the light flickers. Hawke peers around the corner.

Much of his view is blocked by various instruments he half-recognizes from the alchemists’ shops he frequented in Kirkwall, but they’re larger here, more complex. Stands in brass and steel line the walls and crowd into the room. Dark fluids bubble and seethe in clear glass vessels. Flames burn sourceless beneath them. There’s motion beyond, and Hawke leans out a little further.

There are Tal-Vashoth here.

Five of them. They lie in a ring perhaps fifteen feet across. Each is attended by a mage. Even from here Hawke can see their eyes shining, flicking back and forth, the fear on their faces. They don’t seem to be bound, but they are, of course, with blood magic. The mages talk to each other, brief snatches of Tevene just audible over the quiet roar of flames, the bubble of liquid.

Five thin streams of red spiral into the air, swirling gracefully from the arm of each Tal-Vashoth. Above the circle a great glass globe hangs from the ceiling. There are five spouts in the side, and the streams of blood flow into them, trickling down to the bottom, where a pool of deep red roils and swills.

Hawke slips back around the corner. “Qunari bodies,” he breathes. “They needed Qunari bodies for their—experiments. That’s why they fabricated this alliance.”

Bull presses his lips together in anger. “Vints. Should’ve known it would be some blood magic crap. All right, the Inquisition needs to know about this. Let’s go.”

“No,” Hawke hears himself saying. “We can’t leave them.”

Bull lifts an eyebrow. “There are five blood mages in there.”

“We can’t leave them,” Hawke says again. “Will you help me?”

Bull pauses, eyeing Hawke for a moment. Then he grimaces. “Crap. All right. I got your back.”

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. You got a plan?”

Hawke starts unbuckling the Tevinter armor. “I can get them on their heels. Try to give you time to kill them.”

“How much time?”

Hawke thinks about it. “Depends if they’re battle-trained. Can you tell?”

“Maybe if I watched them a little longer. But we don’t have time for that. Someone else might come.”

Hawke lets out a long breath. “Do you have another handkerchief?”

Bull lifts an eyebrow and fishes a square of cloth out of his pocket. “Here.”

“You’re just full of surprises.” Hawke takes it and rummages through the metal-reinforced pouch of little glass vials Bull handed him earlier. His poisons are in here, yes, but also his alchemical tricks. He came well-armed. A couple of the little flasks hold a black, oily liquid—those he uses to vanish. That won’t be enough here. He finds what he’s looking for. Two flasks that contain a grainer substance in reddish-brown. “Might want to hold your breath when you rush in.” He ties the handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

“Right,” Bull replies.

Hawke nods at the halberd. “And that’s yours.”

“The fuck am I supposed to do with a halberd?”

“It’s a two-handed weapon. Thought you liked those.”

“This isn’t a weapon. It’s a toothpick.”

Hawke shrugs. “Take it or leave it, your choice.” Free of any clanking armor plates, he fits one of the flasks into a slot at his waist and holds the other, then draws the shortsword in his left hand.

Five blood mages.

Shit.

He hurls the flask.

What’s the chance of success? He rushes forward. Less than half. Worse if they’re battle-trained and recover quickly. The distance closes. Fifteen yards. Ten. Five. He heaves in a deep breath before he dives into the rust-red cloud.

The mages hack and cough. Immediately Hawke’s eyes start burning, and his vision blurs up with tears until he can barely see anymore. Wouldn’t make a difference—the smoke’s opaque, at least for a few more seconds. And those few seconds are all that matters.

The nearest source of coughing. Hawke stabs. He feels the blade catch cloth, not flesh. Shit. Wasted time. He hacks sideways, hears a grunt of pain. Not good. That’s the sound of someone who’s used to pain. They must be battle mages. He pinpoints his next target by the sound of gagging and whips around, making another stab. The blade sticks in soft flesh, unhindered by bone. A strike to the gut. A killing blow, but not fast enough. He yanks the sword back.

His arm spasms.

Not a muscle spasm. That’s blood magic. Already? He rolls away, and the spell loses its grip. Not long now. Not long before they’ll be able make out his shape in the smoke. He blinks furiously, clearing the tears. A cough just beside him. He lashes out. The edge hacks into the dense meat of muscle, then hits bone. A leg. Next target. Distract. Distract. The sound of a swallowed retch, movement beside him—damn it all, he can see them, which mean they can see him—Hawke lunges, angling the blade up. The mage dodges, and Hawke’s blade skates off their ribs. Shit.

His chest seizes. He heaves himself to one side. The spell follows. Hawke crawls, scrabbling across the flagstones. A shape looms before him. He plants a foot, heaves himself upward, and thrusts. A gesture rips eddies in the smoke. The sword is struck midair as if by a heavy stone, ringing loudly. Better than a parry. The strike jars the metal, sending vibrations straight through to the bones of Hawke’s hand and arm. His grip springs open, and the sword clatters to the floor.

It didn’t work. He’s going to die here. Scraping tendrils burrow into his chest, holding him still, crawling down his arms, into the flesh of his thighs. Can’t move. He’s going to die—

An inhuman roar.

Followed quickly by a pained squeal. Not very dignified for a battle mage. Hawke turns his head, with effort. The rust-red smoke has torn into wisps and strands.

The Iron Bull is in the fray.

One of the mages is impaled on the end of the halberd, the blade jammed downward below their collarbone and enveloped in their body entirely. Must have either severed the ribs or cracked them apart. That’s certainly a killing blow. Blade’s too deep to clear, though, and Bull just snaps off the haft, lunges and extends. His accuracy is incredible. The broken-off end punctures a second mage’s throat and protrudes a foot out the other side.

The rest have backed away, still coughing, although their hands weave. Casting. Hawke, on hands and knees, tries to move. His body catches on a thousand white-hot hooks sunk into his flesh. The pain is enough to make him retch, and he nearly blacks out. Not yet. He holds himself very still. Paralysis is better than unconsciousness.

The mages retreat. Bull rushes, weaponless. Behind him blood burbles out of the mage’s perforated throat, but it doesn’t drip to the ground, instead gushes out in bountiful spurts that slice through the air at his back. Hawke knows that kind of spell. It’ll cut Bull to ribbons. He opens his mouth to issue a warning and can only rasp a whispered “Careful—“

The shining red arcs slap into Bull’s back. The pale muscle there splits open, and earth-black Qunari blood spills out. They’ll use that. They’ll use it against him. Hawke tries once more to move. Hurts less this time. But  _Maker,_  it still hurts. He watches Bull’s muscles tighten—too hard, too abrupt. The mages’ work. They’ll stop him like they stopped Hawke. It’s too late. It wasn’t enough.

Bull stampedes forward. More splits open in his skin. Not the clean lines of blood magic. These are tears, messy and ragged, ascending up his arms as if his muscles would not be contained. Qunari blood black and thick as silt leaks out, surging as if alive. Something catches in his pace, and he staggers but does not slow. Hawke watches the mages. They stumble, stupefied. They do not know what he is. Their hands slash and jab. Blood from the first corpse, a torrent leaping like a mountain cougar through the air. It crashes over Bull’s back, wraps around his neck, coils over his arms.

Still he goes forward. Then he is upon them.

His fist hammers down. The mage tries to block. Hawke hears the snap of a broken bone, the crack of their head smashing into the floor. The others are casting. The black blood on Bull’s skin stretches away from him, but a second later it snaps back. His red restraints tighten and squeeze, cutting into him as he rotates, searching out his next target. His one eye is wild, darting, animal.

Two left. Hawke tries to move and nearly throws up again. Not yet. Fuck.

Bull pursues them across the floor. They don’t have much space. The room’s too crowded with their vile apparatuses. Now their own blood lashes out, and Hawke watches it split Bull’s cheek, flay into his chest. He makes a grab, gets a fistful of robes. The unfortunate mage lets out an ungainly scream as Bull grabs their jaw and snaps it back, breaking their neck.

The spell holding Hawke breaks, and he falls to an elbow, gasping. Bull drops the corpse he’s holding and turns. Hawke sees the change in the quality of his motion, grinding now, strength failing, ceding to momentum, and he lurches toward the last mage. Whatever’s driving him is running out of power. Or maybe—his back and arms coated in silt-black, the floor splattered with it—he’s just running out of blood.

He needs help. Hawke slips a knife out of his sheaf as the last mage weaves a spell. No time to aim properly. He simply throws, and draws another knife, and throws that one too. One to the lower leg, another that nicks the mage’s arm. Bad hits. But it buys a split-second, and another split-second, and then Bull is on them.

Movement from the corner of Hawke’s eye, and a strangled yell. The mage Bull punched earlier, apparently not quite so unconscious after all. They’re dead now. One of the Tal-Vashoth, a woman with arms bigger than Hawke’s, has just snapped their neck. Hawke makes a quick scan. The others Bull put down aren’t moving. As for the last…

Bull is hunched over the corpse, cradling it. He gnaws gently at its neck, his face smeared with red.

Hawke stares at Bull, remembers the blood that surged eager out of him, the hungry darting of his one wild eye. The madness he’s spoken of, that lies in the dark hidden recesses of every Qunari, tamed only with practiced self-control? Is it that? Or something  _other?_

Hawke realizes he has been wary of the Iron Bull, yes, and cautious with him. But never afraid of him.

A mistake. He should have been afraid.

Murmurs, slow shifting, a few residual coughs. Hawke rouses himself. This isn’t over. He turns. The Tal-Vashoth are sitting up, checking with each other, rubbing the tears out of their irritated eyes. Such gentleness there. Hawke can almost forget the blood-coated creature at his back. “Are—“ He clears his throat. “Are you all right?”

Fearful glances directed both at him and over his shoulder. He is  _with_  Bull, after all, even if he did not demonstrate the same savage style. “I—mmh.” He shakes his head, struggling to gather his thoughts. “I’m sorry. To frighten you. You’re in no danger from us.”

“Who are you?” That’s the woman who killed that last mage, her face hard with suspicion.

Hawke hesitates, glances back. “Well, technically we’re Inquisition. Although I’m really just a subcontractor. I’m Hawke, that’s Bull.” The names come out like aliases—he the sharp-eyed hunter, Bull the one who barges in and smashes everything. He half-smiles at the thought.

The woman relaxes, just a fraction. “Hahret.”

“Pleasure to meet you. Er—circumstances notwithstanding.” He stands and inspects himself. Uninjured, or at least it seems that way. That spell was meant to restrain, not to hurt. He wasn’t a true danger to them.

Not like Bull.

“We should get going.”

Hawke turns.

Bull rises slowly, wiping at his mouth. “Sorry about the mess. But I’m here to help.  _We’re_  here to help. Now there’s a couple of lifts at the back of this fortress. If we’re lucky, one of them will have a boat hauled up all nice and ready for us.”

The lifts. Bull spoke of them before, two tall shafts built into the cliff, used to haul up launches from Tevinter ships. Not in much use since the Tal-Vashoth pushed most of the Tevinter presence out of the area. “Right.” Hawke stands. “Don’t suppose any of you know the way?”

“I do,” Hahret replies. “That’s how they brought me in. I ran when I first heard of this whole ‘alliance.’ “ Her disgust for the word is evident. “So they tracked me down and captured me. Took me in by sea, I guess they figured I might give them the slip easier on land.”

“Good. Get ready to leave.”

Then he goes to Bull, who’s still standing away, beside the steel and brass instruments. “Couldn’t have told me about that earlier?” Hawke murmurs.

“I was kinda hoping I wouldn’t have to do it.” He examines his arms. The splits Hawke saw earlier have crusted over with thick black scabs like leeches, clinging hungrily. Cracks of drying blood cover the intact skin.

“It’s a very powerful technique. My part in the whole thing seems in the aftermath rather superfluous,” Hawke remarks drily. The humor comes under a distant bemusement. Amazing he can be so casual in this situation, when he’s just watched Bull drink a person’s blood. It’s a mechanism, of course, he realizes, self-soothing, smoothing out the first true fear he’s felt in…months. Years.

“Uh-uh. Without you I’d be fucked.” He nods back toward the center of the room. “If they saw me coming, I couldn’t have taken those two out in the first few seconds. Then I’d be up against five blood mages all at once, not three. That ends with me in a bunch of little pieces on the floor, resistance or not.”

_“Resistance?”_

“Yeah.” He shifts. “Harder for them to grab my blood. Not that much harder, but harder.”

The way it stretched from his skin and then snapped back on. Ah. “Are you all right?” Hawke asks. “It looked like you’d lost quite a lot of it. Blood, I mean.”

Bull grunts. “Got it back. I’m good.” But his one eye skates over the floor, over the gleaming surfaces of the alchemical instruments, and does not fix on Hawke. There is a tightness, too, at the corners of his mouth, like the auspice of a wince.

Is that—shame? Best not to dwell on it, then. Shame is a weapon Hawke wields only rarely, because it is one of the cruelest things to inflict. And when it is self-inflicted, worrying at it only worsens the wound. “All right.” He lets out a sigh. “There’ll probably be more fighting before we’re free.”

“Yeah.”

By the time Hawke turns, Hahret and the others are on their feet, clustered, gazing over. Holding together should their mysterious and violent saviors turn on them. Good. Caution is a high virtue here. “I don’t suppose any of you could help us out in a fight?” Hawke asks. “I know those mages were draining you of blood—“

Hahret raises a hand. “I can. I’ve got magic.”

A mage. Thank the bloody Maker. “Good. That’s excellent.” He goes to pick up the shortsword from where it’s fallen and finds it was bent by that strike. Useless. Ah well. “Now let’s go. Bull, take the rear.”

“Right.”

As Hawke climbs the stairs he realizes that last order probably wasn’t necessary. Bull is, after all, a professional, certainly more so than Hawke. But it’ll be helpful if the Tal-Vashoth think Hawke’s in charge rather than the Qunari who just gulped down a few pints of Tevinter blood.

Hawke listens at the door for a moment, then nudges it open. All clear. Hahret appears beside him in the hall, silent. She must be used to ducking enemies. Up close, Hawke can see the scars, a few nicks on her face, a bigger gash into the back of her neck. Mage or no, she’s seen some combat. The other four behind him are pale from the loss of blood, but they display no fear. Warriors, all of them. Right. Get rid of the fighters first—pull them back to the fortress, pretend it’s to bolster defenses, then disappear them one by one. Tevinters. A flicker of anger that he quashes. Can’t afford anything that might detract from his focus.

Hahret motions.  _This way._

Hawke goes beside her. They stop at a corner. Clank of armor. Hawke flattens himself against the wall and draws a thin-bladed throwing knife. Closer. Patience. Closer. Hawke darts out and grabs the man’s throat, squeezing, the chainmail rough against his palms. No sound. There must be no sound. The man chokes and gurgles and tries to draw. Hawke shoves him back against the wall, blocks the motion with his own body. His throwing knife sneaks up, finds the juncture of mail and flesh beneath the man’s jaw.

Hawke rips the knife sideways. No sound. Blood fountains over his hand. Messy. Ech. Can’t stay. He steals the man’s sword, sticks his head back around he corner, and motions.

They go forward. Won’t be long now before they’re found out. Unavoidable. That messy kill might have bought them twenty seconds.

A shout from behind them. Or ten seconds. “Run,” Hawke hisses to Hahret.

She runs, leading the way.

Hawke remains at her side. Needs to assess, to catch the threats that might take them unawares. Bull will do the same for their rear. A sound catches in his ear. He grabs Hahret’s arm, jerks his head at the corner before them. Hahret nods, her arms sweeping forward.

A soldier charges around the corner. A wave of force slams into him and smacks him up against the wall. He staggers, dazed. Hawke slips forward and finishes the job. From the back of the line, a grunt. “They’re coming!” Bull calls.

Hahret’s already running. Hawke starts after her.

He’s familiar with Circle magic, of course, and Dalish magic, and even blood magic. Another soldier, whom Hahret hoists into the air before smashing him against the ground. This is different. There’s no intermediary, no flames, no arcs of lightning, no lashing tongues of blood. It’s as if she is simply exerting her will on the world.

So this is the magic of Tal-Vashoth trained outside the Qun. Hawke doesn’t like magic of any kind, really, but he’s especially glad he hasn’t had to fight any mages like her.

Shouting from up ahead. Damn. They’re about to run into resistance. Hawke wishes he had his daggers. The shortsword will just have to do.

They turn. A half-dozen soldiers block their path. Hahret flings out a hand and bowls half of them over. Compensate. Hawke rushes at the ones still standing. Halberds. Shit. Far more useful in a broad hallway than in a tiny round room. They spread out. Hawke doesn’t slow, although he really doesn’t think he can kill them and come away unscathed—

Then they stagger, flailing to keep their balance. Thank the Maker. Alone, head-to-head, Hawke isn’t much of a threat. With backup he’s lethal. He hacks open the first soldier’s throat, batting aside the next one’s arm as he aims a thrust at their lower belly. Those breastplates require some creativity of him. The point of the sword pierces the mail and slides in. But Hawke’s not looking for a gut wound, and he tilts the blade up so it slices through the soldier’s heart, then rotates the now-corpse to shield him from the last halberd. Bull looms, and the third soldier crumples, neck broken.

Hahret is busy pummeling the remaining three with enormous invisible strikes. Whatever those Tevinter mages did to her doesn’t seem to have diminished her ability one bit. Hawke gestures at her. “We need to move!”

“Right. Almost there,” Hahret tells him, and they’re running again.

No more get in their way. That’s…worrisome. The Tevinters may be organizing. “There!” Hahret points. An enormous pair of double doors, held closed by a heavy iron lock and chain. Hawke goes again to the sheaf at his back—a throwing knife will do nicely for a pick on a lock that size—but he’s hardly managed to draw one before Hahret’s smashing the lock to smithereens. The chain slithers to the floor. Well, that works too. Bull puts his shoulder to the door and starts pushing. Hawke comes up beside him and shoves, and Hahret too, lines up, adding her own strength. The door grinds across the stone, the hinges crusted with salt and rust. More grunts from Hawke’s left. The rest of the Tal-Vashoth, weak though they are, pushing with all their might. The gap widens, and the scent of sea air washes over him. Hawke’s legs strain, his boots slipping over the floor.

At last Bull says, “Got it, let’s go!”

Not a moment too soon. Along with the distant sound of crashing waves, Hawke hears the clank of armor approaching.

Out into a cavern hewn into the rock, the back wall opened to the bright blue sky. At the edge of the floor two launches sit empty, balanced on bubbled metal frames slotted into rails that must go all the way down the cliff. Between them sits a hulking machine. The controls.

“Hawke, we need supplies!” Bull shouts. “I’ll hold them off!”

Hahret leaves Hawke’s side and stations herself next to Bull, at the door. Hawke directs the remaining four. “There, against the wall! Those barrels should have food and water!”

He can tell by the way their bodies sag that they’re exhausted, but they move with urgency. Hawke, meanwhile, goes to the machine just as the sounds of battle start up at his back. Levers on the left and right. The launch on the left is bigger, so he hits the right lever. The boat starts to descend, the four great chains nested into the rails lowering the frame down the cliff. There. The Tevinters won’t be able to follow immediately. Two Tal-Vashoth approach, rolling a barrel between them. Then the next pair with a second barrel.

A cry of mixed pain and frustration. That’s Hahret. Hawke spins, finds a soldier has slipped past her and is heading for the Tal-Vashoth. Hawke intercepts him and tackles him to the ground, jamming the shortsword into his neck. It seems his help is needed in the fight.

Bull is armed again, and not so wild this time. He is bleeding, but it’s a sword-chop on his forearm, a defensive wound. Hahret has a cut at the base of her broken-off horn, her eye closed against the gush of blood. Hawke comes up on her blind side. Compensate. He calls a warning to her first. Rather not receive a startled force-blast to the face from his own ally.

They’re pouring in now, the doors scraping open. Hawke puts the shortsword to good use. Not as quick as a dagger, but better for deflecting halberds. Hahret changes her strategy now. Her strikes are faster but not as forceful. They don’t need to be. Hawke is there to land the killing blows. She shunts the soldiers to the side, or throws them off-balance, and he drives the sword into them, thrusting with enough power to pierce the chainmail.

A shout from one of the Tal-Vashoth. “We’re ready!”

Finally. Hahret begins to retreat, Bull beside her. Hawke darts back and hauls down the lever. The other four are already in the launch, along with a cluster of barrels. Hawke drops down as the launch starts to descent. A soldier gets past and follows him; Hawke grabs the man before he can get his footing, drags him to the stern, and heaves him over the transom into the waves far below.

Bull slides down one of the rails and lands on the frame with a  _thud,_ then climbs into the boat _._  “Uh. They got more mages.”

Shit. Hawke draws a throwing knife and peers up the shaft. A silhouette leans over the edge. He throws. The silhouette whips back. No cry of pain. A miss.

Hahret slides down a second later. “Hope none of you have weak stomachs.”

A rushing noise from above. She punches upward. The approaching fireball explodes into a thousand fragments. Hawke lifts his arms reflexively, feels the bits sear through his armor. One burns his cheek.  _Ouch._  “Weak stomachs?” he asks.

“Yeah. Might want to hold on to something.” She stands diagonally in the boat, extends her arms out to either side, bunches them back, and strikes.

At opposite corners of the frame the chains split. The frame tilts alarmingly, sawing back and forth. Hawke hurls himself toward the barrels at the center of the boat. “Are you  _bloody_ —“

“Incoming!” Bull roars.

Hahret punches up again. This time they’re showered with little shards of ice. Hawke gestures wildly at the other Tal-Vashoth to get in the middle of the bloody boat or they’ll all flip clean over, although they seem to have gotten the idea and clustered as close as they can around the barrels. Each looks much more calm than Hawke feels. Hahret rotates and lines herself up again. Hawke exchanges a look with Bull. He’s expecting a sort of “what-in-the-Void-did-we-get-ourselves-into” expression and instead finds a grin like this is the best day of Bull’s life. Hawke sighs to himself. A professional in skill if not demeanor.

Hahret lashes out. The final two chains snap.

They plummet through the air, the frame screeching through the rails in free fall. 

 _I’m going to die,_  Hawke thinks.  _Sorry, Fenris. I hope you’ll forgive me. For everything._

Through the wind whipping past, he notices Hahret still standing, steady as ever. She takes a long, deep breath. How long have they been falling? Surely they’ll hit any second now. Hawke waits for the wood to splinter under him, for the ocean to rush up and smash him against the cliffs.

Instead it’s the boat that rushes up against him, or rather just slows all at once. His stomach shoots into his throat, and he covers his mouth with his elbow. Then another drop, much shorter this time. The belly of the boat slaps into the water.

“That was  _awesome!”_  Bull staggers to his feet, going to unship the oars. One of the Tal-Vashoth is sick over the side. Hawke thinks vaguely of joining her. Hahret sweeps her arms together in a mighty clap. The boat shoots backwards out of the shaft and into the open water. Hawke had just gotten his feet under him, and the motion sends him into a stumble that is stopped by one of the barrels, which smashes helpfully into his nose.

The boat starts to rotate. Bull’s got the oars fanned out, and he’s rowing hard with one arm. Another fireball streaks down from above, but it flickers out far before it reaches them. The mage is simply too high up.

They did it. They escaped.

Bull rows with powerful, even pulls. “Hey. Mage. What’s your name?”

She sits on one of the benches, holding her stomach. “Hahret.”

“Hahret. You looking for a job?”

She lifts an eyebrow. “Does it involve killing Vints?”

Bull grins at her. “You know, I might just be able to swing that.”

For a while after that no one speaks. Hawke is not, in fact, sick over the side, although the choppy waters don’t help. This isn’t quite open ocean—too many islands around—so there are no huge swells that might threaten to capsize them. But the wind’s whipped up the sea, and little waves slop and smack against the hull. As they cross the glittering strait the sun slides down the sky and wells on the horizon. Hawke takes over at the oars when he notices the tremble in Bull’s muscles. Not very fair making the injured partner do all the work. Bull directs him east, and Hawke obeys. But he can’t help glancing south.

“Excited to get back, huh?”

Hawke looks up. “Very much so.”

“Yeah. I remembered why I don’t miss this place. At all.” Bull slouches back against the transom. “Hey.”

“Hm?”

“I know what it’s like. To know about people. How you talk to them for ten seconds and your mind’s already picked them apart and lain them out for you, and they still don’t know a single thing about you. It’s a good skill for infiltration. Or survival.” He strokes a scab absently. “Shit for actually living, though. Sorry.”

Hawke gazes out for a moment at the setting sun. “I suppose it is, isn’t it?”

They land on one of the larger islands and haul the boat up off the beach, hiding it in the trees. Hahret and Bull fight about whether to go back immediately and rally the Tal-Vashoth, or to wait for Inquisition help. Hahret doesn’t want more of her people to die in those experiments, and Bull says an incomplete break will only confuse things and make the Vints start attacking again to coerce the Tal-Vashoth back into an alliance.

Hawke takes a drink from one of the barrels. Bull’s going to win, of course. An argument with him isn’t an argument, it’s a matter of time. Hawke watches his body language, listens to the changing pitch of his voice, tracks the emotions he inflicts on Hahret. She cedes eventually.

Hawke registers the fact in some distant corner of his mind. All he can think of is one thing.

Home.

Bull speaks to someone through this…device, this glowing stone. He calls it a “sending crystal.” Hawke keeps well away from it. But it summons a caravel that shows up two nights later, bearing no lights and running no colors, to pick them up. When they make port on the north coast of Antiva, the dawn has just broken and Bull hurries to shepherd the Tal-Vashoth to someplace where they won’t stick out like five sore thumbs. He bids Hawke goodbye, and they shake hands.

Hawke rides south. He does not push his horse. He will arrive when he arrives, but he  _will_  arrive. In the southern reaches of the Drylands he is struck all of a sudden by a terrible loneliness and finds himself wishing Bull were there, only to laugh at himself, amused that Bull was his first thought rather than Fenris. It is true he shares things with Bull that he does not with Fenris.  _I know what it’s like. To know about people._  Of course, there are also some differences between them. Hawke thinks of Bull’s mouth smeared with blood, his one eye flickering with shame.

He does hope the Inquisitor was serious when she mentioned generous compensation. After this he thinks he deserves a great feast or ten, and perhaps a new feather mattress. (Fenris doesn’t particularly like those, but half the time he sleeps on top of Hawke anyway so it doesn’t matter.)

Through Antiva, across the Minanter and into the Marches. Vast fields of wheat pass him by, placid flocks of sheep and herds of grazing cattle. The air grows a little brisk, too, and Hawke thanks the Maker for it. The Marches in summer are bad enough. To live in the north year-round? Torture.

At last he finds himself riding down a familiar road, the dust kicking up beneath his horse’s hooves. Soon. Soon this interminable journey will be over. There, the little path that tacks north into the woods. He takes it, leading his horse through the trees. Familiar landmarks slip by on either side—the tree with three trunks, the rocks that look like Varric in profile. Almost. Only a mile left. A half-mile. A quarter.

When he arrives he finds that Fenris isn’t home.

Hawke stands for a minute in the grassy yard in utter defeat. Then he hugs his horse’s neck, ties it up, and sits down on the porch to wait.

It isn’t long. Perhaps an hour goes by, the afternoon trudging on, before there’s a rustling in the woods and Fenris appears, clutching—something. “Oh!” He stops. “Hawke, you’re back.”

“I am.” Hawke doesn’t move, but the relief floods through him, a river undammed. “Is that a  _kite?”_

“Yes.” Fenris approaches across the grass, holding it up. “Saravh and I made it yesterday, and today we took it out flying.” He displays the kite for Hawke to see. “She painted it with her…family.”

Aveline and Donnic are to one side, Aveline’s hair rendered in brilliant orange, Donnic’s mutton chops jutting from his face. Saravh is next, small and dark, her hands joined on one side to Aveline, on the other to Fenris, who is thin and smiling. Beside Fenris stands a hulking figure who looms over the rest. Hawke grins and points. “Did she paint a giant in the back there?”

Fenris raises an eyebrow and grins right back. “Hawke, that’s you.”

Oh.

“Oh,” he says. He hadn’t thought of it. Hadn’t thought he would be in this picture. He looks closer, but yes, it is him, his beard, his mess of hair…

Fenris’s smile vanishes. “Hawke?” he says urgently, and comes forward, laying the kite down. “What’s wrong?”

Hawke isn’t sure what all the fuss is about until he feels wetness on his cheeks and discovers that for only the second time in twenty years he is crying. He goes to say something, makes a small, soft noise instead, rubs at his eyes.

“Hawke.” Fenris strokes his face, his hair. “Hawke, what’s—“

“Please don’t—“ Hawke pushes him away, gently. “Please, please don’t—“

Fenris takes his hands back, clasps them together. For a moment he doesn’t move, and Hawke wants to apologize, for upsetting him, for breaking down in front of him, but he can’t remember the words to say, knows only a guilt so great it crowds out everything else, a guilt of the kind that has surely driven people to drown themselves, or to fling themselves off of high, barren cliffs. The river is too slow for drowning, and the nearest cliff isn’t for several miles. He still hasn’t said anything.

Fenris draws up the other chair and perches on it, his body tensed, his voice quiet and steady as Hawke’s ever heard it. “Will you tell me what happened?”

Hawke takes a breath and tells him everything.

——

“I’m sorry.”

That’s what he ends on. There. The words he couldn’t remember before. “I’m sorry.” He says them again. “Fenris, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’ve been lying to you all this time. I’m so sorry.”

Fenris leans forward a little. Then he asks, “May I touch you?”

Hawke nods. So Fenris rises, then sits on Hawke’s thighs, strokes his face, and kisses him.

Hawke responds, barely, still afraid, still beholden to that abyssal regret. His fingertips brush Fenris’s back. His other hand remains on the arm of the chair.

Fenris breaks away. He’s silent for a moment. Then: “I must admit that this is not news to me.”

Hawke stares. “Wh—what?”

“I have known you for twelve years, and been with you for half that time. Even you can’t hide things from me.”

“You—you knew?” Hawke is cast adrift. Hasn’t any idea how to respond to this information. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

An arched eyebrow. “You would have assured me that everything was fine and redoubled your efforts to conceal that it was not.”

Ah. That is—true.

“I saw it. How…lost you seemed, even here, in this place we both thought of as home once. I tried to help, although I do not think my ideas were very good.” He sighs. “Plainly I should have strapped you to a chair and threatened your life instead.”

Tried to help? What does he mean? Hawke scrambles to remember.  _Aveline has asked if you would help some of her guardsmen catch a group of bandits west of Sundermount._ The bandits never showed. Instead Hawke just talked with the guardsmen all afternoon, and they invited him for Diamondback in the evening.  _Would you mind looking after Saravh today? A merchant has just told me he’s found a book I asked after._  It wasn’t only Saravh but four of her friends as well, and Hawke the sole entertainer, taking on roles as a nasty jewel thief they must defeat, then a great shaggy bear, then a roaring dragon.  _I promised Aveline I’d help train her new recruits in grappling today, but my knee is still bothering me, would you do it instead?_ They were half his age and eager to best him, and none of them did, but they tried over and over, and it was Hawke who had to beg for mercy first simply because he couldn’t keep up with their energy. Afterwards they took him out for drinks.  

And he never noticed it was Fenris behind all that, Fenris who guided him into the paths of those who would draw out his kindness, and who would return that kindness to him.

“Hawke, would you please hold me as you normally do rather than as if I were made of glass?”

Hawke lunges forward and wraps both arms around Fenris, pulling him in tight, face buried in the crook of his neck. Again he wants to say something. To apologize. To profess his love. Again his silver tongue fails him utterly.

“I love you now no less than the day I first realized I wanted to be yours,” Fenris murmurs in his ear, and runs gentle fingers through his hair. “I hope that reassures you that you are not lost. You are still the man I fell in love with, despite the years.”

How long ago was it? Ten years? Ten years since Fenris smiled at some inane comment of Isabela’s and Hawke felt the little jolt in his chest and found  _oh, Maker, I’ve fallen very hard, haven’t I?_ How could they still be together like this? Hawke remembers what he was like then—still learning, still determined to tax himself to his limits for the sake of helping, and he still felt  _everything,_ felt it so strongly he can’t imagine how he made it here through all they've been through. Of course he can—by getting rid of all that, by turning into the empty man Bull growled at in disgust in the base of the fortress tower. But how does he get it back? Where has he left it, to go find it again?

“I will help you, Hawke.” Fenris kisses him again. “If you will let me. And Aveline will as well. I have spoken with her about this. You do not need to do this alone.”

“I don’t want to. Maker, I don’t want to.” Hawke holds onto Fenris as if afraid he’s about to evaporate into the air. “I just—I don’t know how to start.”

Fenris presses against him, warm and close, and Hawke can hear the smile in his voice. “I believe you already have.”


End file.
